Subpar (get it? Sub? Par? I'll see myself out...)
Summary
Steel Sharks may not be anything we haven’t seen before, but it has a decent cast that includes Billy Dee Williams and Gary Busey; it also has enough shoot-outs and action scenes to be worth a watch on a drunken and pantsless Saturday night.
Plot: In this undersea thriller, a United States chemist is captured by terrorists. But a rescue attempt by an elite group of Navy Seals goes wrong when they are captured. Now they must wage a silent war beneath the waves.
Review: Steel Sharks is the kind of movie that came out every few months in the late 90s /early 2000s as there are countless straight to video movies involving men on a mission and submarines. This feels like a recruitment video for the US Navy while also being an entertaining and action packed action movie. The cast includes Billy Dee Williams and Gary Busey (who is not playing a villain, for once); you keep waiting for him to betray someone as he played so many villains back then, but in this he is a true blue hero. He is remarkably restrained with no Batshit Busey moments and it’s refreshing to see him play a good guy again.
Billy Dee Williams also shines as Admiral Jim Perry who is trying to keep war from breaking out after a rescue mission goes awry. Although this is a men on a mission movie, the lead is really Billy Warlock who plays Bob Rogers; he’s new on the squad but is forced to take charge when some of his team are killed during an escape. You never really care about any of the characters too much, but just enough to keep watching.
There is plenty of action with some shoot-outs, submarine battles and even some fight scenes; like so many other submarine movies of the time it of course uses footage from Crimson Tide which is immediately recognizable.
At 90 minutes Steel Sharks is well paced, but there is little that makes it stand out from many other kinds of movies from this golden era, aside from the cast. The villains are mostly one note and forgettable but do the job in being hateful.
Overall, Steel Sharks is generic stuff but still a fun time with Gary Busey more restrained than we’re used to and Billy Dee Williams being as cool as ever; it may use some of the submarine footage from other movies, but there’s still enough action to be a pleasing time waster.
